Bitly, the URL shortening service has issued an alert to its users that it has been hacked and account credentials may have been stolen.

The hack seemingly doesn’t affect people who only use Bitly as a basic link-shortening service.
It’s expected that the hack will mainly cause problems for website publishers who use Bitly to share and track story links.But it does affect registered users who use tools like saved links, stat tracking and social network sharing.

Bitly is vague on the details, for example, it doesn’t provide details about the hack, or whether information other than account credentials was stolen.

It does however say that users’ email addresses, encrypted passwords, API keys and OAuth tokens may have been compromised.

In a blog post by Mark Josephon, the Bitly CEO, he says: “We have no indication at this time that any accounts have been accessed without permission.”
The company says it has taken “proactive measures to secure all paths that led to the compromise.”

In addition to resetting all passwords, Bitly has also invalided all Twitter and Facebook credentials, so publishers will have to reconnect these accounts before posting via Bitly.

Steve has a background in IT and business journalism and in the past has written extensively for both the UK national and trade press including The Guardian, Independent-on-Sunday, The Times, The Register, MicroScope and Computer Weekly.
He's also worked for most of the world's largest IT companies in a copy and content producing capacity. He has a particular focus on IT security and has been involved in writing about the industry at various levels ranging from magazine launches to producing newsletters. He also runs a small copy writing business called Art of Words.
When not bashing away at a keyboard he can sometimes be found in a boxing gym making futile efforts to keep fit or marveling at the works of Sufi poets such as Jalaluddin Rumi and Hafiz of Shiraz.